Free Fangs Out by David Freed Page A

for a big government spy agency means knowing someone who has the resources and savvy to find out virtually anything about anyone. I needed a home address for Janet Bollinger. It was for that reason I reached out to my buddy, Buzz.
    “If you think I’m gonna access classified government files and go to Leavenworth, Logan, just so you can go chasing some strange piece of tail, you’re dreamin’,” Buzz said. “Why don’t you do what every other creepy stalker does these days—look her up on the Internet.”
    “First of all, I’m not chasing some ‘strange.’ I’m working. Second of all, I’m out of town and I don’t have my laptop. I’m not asking you to compromise national security, Buzz. I’m asking you to check open source records and find me an address, that’s all.”
    “You don’t have a cell phone?”
    “It doesn’t have Internet service.”
    “Everybody has the Internet on their phone these days, Logan. What century are you living in?”
    “The one that requires me to make a choice between eating or paying for cell phone service features I can’t afford. Are you gonna help me or not?”
    Buzz grunted. He was among my oldest friends, a salty, hard-charging Delta vet who had shown me the ropes when I’d first transferred into Alpha. Buzz had done more to help populate the streets of Paradise with demented martyrs than just about any operator alive or dead. He’d lost an eye to an RPG, gunning down the Libyan boy who’d launched it at him. The injuries, both emotional and physical, compelled him to trade field operations for an all-source analyst’s post. But neither his wounds nor his desk job dulled the kiss-my-hind end attitude that made him who he was.
    “The Three Tenors,” Buzz said.
    “The Three Tenors?”
    “They’re opera stars, Logan, you uncultured lout.”
    “I know who they are. What about ’em?”
    “Buy me their concert CD, and I’ll run the address for you.”
    “Since when did you become an opera fan?”
    “Since my old lady decided it was high time I stopped walking around on my knuckles. Face it, Logan, you could stand to do a little less swinging from the trees yourself.”
    “Next thing, you’ll be telling me you’re into ballet, too.”
    “Ballet? Me? Christ, no. Ballet’s for pussies.”
    “Your denial’s just a tad over the top, Buzz. But that’s cool. There’s no shame in liking ballet.”
    “OK, so I like ballet—but you tell anybody, Logan, I swear to God, the fire department’ll have to use the Jaws of Life to remove my foot from your anus.”
    “Chill, buddy, your secret’s safe with me. Three Tenors in concert for Janet Bollinger’s home address. Fair trade.”
    “I probably would’ve run the address for free, you know, you son of a bitch.”
    “You’re nothing if not a true humanitarian, Buzz.”
    He made a sarcastic smooching sound and hung up.

    R UTH W ALKER’S former co-worker, Janet Bollinger, lived just north of the Mexican border in Imperial Beach, among San Diego’s decidedly lesser suburbs. I drove my black rented SUV south down the Golden State freeway from downtown San Diego, got off eighteen minutes later on Palm Avenue and headed west, passing junk shops, tattoo parlors, and various meth heads and other zombies wandering the sidewalks with dazed, whacked-out faces.
    Buzz had gotten back to me with Janet Bollinger’s address ten minutes after I called him. Though he didn’t reveal his sources, it was evident he’d tapped state DMV records—a big no-no in the federal intelligence community if such inquiries are made for other than official purposes, which in truth they are all the time. More than a few analysts and case officers have stepped on their meat running license plates after spotting some sweet young thing in the grocery store parking lot. Buzz, I was confident, had been around too long and was too savvy not to have covered his computer tracks. Along with Bollinger’s address, he passed along her recent